Jaime Engle has always known he wanted a career in the medical field and, come Friday, he will have earned his degree.

When Engle was younger, he was visiting family in Mexico when he grew ill. But because he wasn’t a Mexican citizen, he couldn’t get treatment. So a family friend’s doctor and a nurse came to check on him during his recovery.

Since then, Engle knew he wanted to work in medicine.

“It was something I knew I wanted to do, to help someone in their time of need, just like they helped me out in my time of need,” he said.

Engle moved to the Lewiston-Clarkston Valley when he was 16 years old, graduating from Clarkston High School in 2010. Then he went into the U.S. Navy for five years, working in the medical field.

Engle has been in the nursing program at the Clarkston branch of Walla Walla Community College for four years. He put in an initial two years before taking a break when his first child was born, then returned to school to finish the program.

The commencement in Clarkston will take place Friday, with graduation set for noon and nurse-pinning at 4 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. at the Clarkston campus.

In the 2023-24 academic year, WWCC awarded 468 certificates, 589 associate degrees and 38 bachelor’s degrees. Of the students earning certificates or degrees, 40% were the first in their family to attend college and 19% identify as Hispanic or Latino.

The college expects about 300 students and their families will participate in the commencement ceremony at the Walla Walla campus and another 80 at Clarkston, according to the college.

Engle enjoyed his experience at WWCC, especially the smaller class sizes, which makes access to instructors easier.

“If you need a little bit of extra help,” he said, “they do have that availability of a one-on-one meeting with them, whereas like bigger campuses it’s probably a lot harder.”

Engle also credits the help of wife and family.

“Having kids makes the work a little harder, but thankfully I have a super-supportive wife,” Engle said. “I definitely couldn’t have done it without her.”

Even extended family — Engle’s parents and in-laws — helped out with his two daughters so he could have time to study for tests.

“It’s thanks to them too that I was able to make it through,” he said.

He originally was going to school to become a doctor, but when he found out he was going to be a father he decided to go through the nurse practitioner route. That way he could work as a registered nurse instead of going through medical school and taking out student loans.

After graduation, Engle plans to work as a trauma nurse in the emergency room at TriState Health, in Clarkston.

“Being in the military, I did a lot of emergency medicine,” he said. “That’s what I’ve always been more drawn into.”

Working and living in the Lewiston-Clarkston Valley will help him spend more time with family, especially now that his third child is on the way.

His military experience also helped with his studies in areas like time management, and gave him some medical skills.

“In the military I was able to do pretty much anything that a nurse did,” he said.

Now that he’s a civilian, he has to get certifications to do the medical things he was doing in the service

Nursing is a female-dominated field, something he didn’t think about when he was in the military. Engle said there were about five men in his WWCC classes, compared to 45 women, and he’s noticed more men entering the field.

Having gender diversity at WWCC gave Engle more perspectives to consider when it came to patient care.

For example, he said he would often step back and look at the big picture when it came to field work known as clinicals. But women were more often invested in individual aspects of a patient’s care.

Even though the approaches to patients were different, they could both be valuable.

“That different approach that everybody takes definitely helps out with outcomes of patient treatment and patient care,” Engle said.

Brewster may be contacted at kbrewster@lmtribune.com or at (208) 848-2297.